Metallica returns to the top

By SHAWN TELFORD, SPECIAL TO THE P-I

Published 10:00 pm, Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Metallica, you are forgiven.

Ten years ago, after the two worst albums of your career (the back-to-back "Load" and "Reload"), you sued your own fans -- many of whom were the same ones who in the '80s traded your music on cassette, building an underground fan base that rivaled the audiences of many mainstream bands.

Granted, the Internet was relatively new and the powers-that-be (read: record labels) hadn't yet figured out how to deal with electronic file sharing (read: $$$), so you took matters into your own hands.

You followed this with "St. Anger," a reasonable return to the driving, dark energy that seems synonymous with Metallica. You even made a documentary feature, "Some Kind of Monster," chronicling your near collapse and the therapy you undertook in order to stay together. Yes, adult males talking about their feelings, their fears, their need for acceptance and love. But these are not ordinary men; these are the rock stars who brought us such songs as "Harvester of Sorrow" and "Creeping Death," with its fervent chant, "Die, die, die!"

The answer is found in your regression to "Master of Puppets"/"Ride the Lightening"-era Metallica on the new album, "Death Magnetic." Perhaps inspired by your past, the new album is the Metallica we in the '80s first came to know, then to worship.

McDaniel and I first noticed the peculiar layout that thwarted popular rock conventions by putting the stage in the center of the arena, creating a certain intimacy with the main-floor fans while also giving those in the seats a closer (and rotating) view of their heavy-metal masters.

The inclusion of relatively unknown but excellent up-and-coming doom-metal group the Sword was an admirable risk -- something of a passing of the torch? I know you weren't passing a torch to Lamb of God, a band on Monday night's roster for reasons unknown (hint: it certainly wasn't awesomeness, nor musical fortitude).

But let's talk about love. By that I mean "One," "Sad But True," "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)," "Master of Puppets," "Blackened," "Seek and Destroy" and the cover of the Misfits' "Die, Die My Darling," all of which were played in your signature barreling and bombastic fashion, as if there was any other way.

While this string of heavy-metal classics tided over the appetite of longtime fans, the focus of the concert seemed to be the new album, as both sets began with "That Was Just Your Life" and "The End of the Line."

And spending close to 15 minutes doling out swag (guitar picks, drum sticks, even your black armbands) to fans who stayed after the two hour-plus concert showed one of two things: either 1.) You have learned your lesson and will never sue your fans again, or 2.) You've loved your fans all along and the suit was merely an act of tough love (that you should never do again).